Who was the first heavy metal band?

Answer 1

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that emerged as a defined musical style in the 1970s, having its roots in hard rock bands which, between 1967 and 1974, mixed blues and rock to create a hybrid with a thick, heavy, guitar-and-drums-centered sound, characterised by the use of highly-amplified distortion. Out of heavy metal various subgenres later evolved, many of which are referred to simply as "metal". As a result, "heavy metal" now has two distinct meanings: either the genre and all of its subgenres, or the original heavy metal bands of the 1970s style sometimes dubbed "traditional metal", as exemplified by Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Blue Öyster Cult and Black Sabbath.

Answer 2

Led Zeppelin? You gotta' be kidding. You people have no clue. Any serious (and aged) rocker knows that the Yardbirds are at the very root of hard rock and heavy metal. Just look at these band members...Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page! This was Jimmy before he was with Led Zeppelin! Damn, these three guys created hard rock out of simple standard blues music by doubling the tempos and cranking the amps up to ten. The Yardbirds expanded the range of the electric guitar by experimenting with feedback, sustain, and fuzztone. They popularized the rave-up, a term used back in the 60's that was a kind of free-for-all where you jam long and hard, not as soloists, but in a tandem, until you reach an epiphany about 10 or 20 or 30 minutes later, a shuddering climax of decibels and pure energy. The Yardbirds were the bridge between the blues of early 60's London and the fuzz-toned psychedelia and power-chorded heavy metal that prevailed throughout the seventies. It was the Yardbirds that laid the groundwork for rock guitar as we know it. Listen to the Yardbirds and know your rock 'n roll!!

Answer 3

I would have to say Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin was a metal band at the time, but very mild now compared to the death metal rock people listen to. There was also Black Sabbath, which came slightly later though.

Answer 4

American blues music was highly popular and influential among the early British rockers; bands like the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds had recorded covers of many classic blues songs, sometimes speeding up the tempo and using electric guitar where the original used acoustic. (Similar adaptations of blues and other African American music had formed the basis of the earliest rock and roll, notably that of Elvis Presley).

Such powered-up blues music was encouraged by the intellectual and artistic experimentation that arose when musicians started to exploit the opportunities of the electrically amplified guitar to produce a louder and more dissonant sound. Where blues-rock drumming styles had been largely simple shuffle beats on small drum kits, drummers began using a more muscular, complex, and amplified approach to match and be heard with the increasingly loud guitar sounds; similarly vocalists modified their technique and increased their reliance on amplification, often becoming more stylised and dramatic in the process. Simultaneous advances in amplification and recording technology made it possible to successfully capture the power of this heavier approach on record.

The earliest music commonly identified as heavy metal came out of the Birmingham area of the United Kingdom in the late 1960s when bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath applied an overtly non-traditional approach to blues standards and created new music often based on blues scales and arrangements. These bands were highly influenced by American psychedelic rock musicians such as Jefferson Airplane and Jimi Hendrix, who had pioneered amplified and processed blues-rock guitar and acted as a bridge between black American music and white European rockers.

Answer 5

You can't really say if there actually was a first heavy metal band because there have been many bands of that genre but not all of them have become famous.

Answer 6

I'm willing to bet that, like other styles and fads, heavy metal came as a wave of several different bands creating and molding the genre rather than a single artist.

Answer 7

Some would say Black Sabbath. Some might even say Led Zepplin (which I is completely wrong, as Sabbath was around before them). There could have been other bands that never got big.

Answer 8

led zeppelins,'' whole lotta love'' i believe it to be Formed in 1968, Led Zeppelin were innovators who never lost mainstream appeal. While the band is perhaps best known as pioneers of hard rock and heavy metal

Answer 9

hmm i would say blue cheer because they were the most metallic at the time but then again the heavy riffs of tony iommi of black sabbath were the heaviest.

"every cool riff has already been written by black sabbath, wether you play it backwards, faster, slower, or different. so basicly your just ripping it off"
-rob zombie

Answer 10

Lawence Welk?